“Development often starts with a woman. Support leadership programs for women through the USC, 56 Sparks Street, Ottawa.”

As we celebrate International Women’s Day, let’s give a thought to one of our pioneering women leaders, Lotta Hitschmanova, and the impact she had on her adopted country, Canada.

Quite remarkably, as a refugee, she became perhaps the most prominent Canadian woman of her generation. But more than that, she pushed hard for women’s development around the world, well before this became a key approach followed by international development agencies.

Lotta Hitschmanova inspired thousands of USC Canada supporters from coast to coast, many of whom packed clothing for shipment to those in need overseas. Sometimes they volunteered in unusual circumstances, as Lotta’s biographer Clyde Sanger has noted:

Lotta Hitschmanova inspired a legion of loyal volunteers supporting her and USC Canada’s work right across the country. Truro NS was no different in this regard, but they did have one key asset that other communities lacked, as related by Clyde Sanger in his 1986 biography of Lotta:

“Some [USC] branches had certain advantages, like the Truro branch which was just down road from Stanfield’s Ltd., the family woollen and textile firm that has never looked back since the Klondike Gold Rush spread the fame of its unshrinkable underwear across North America. Continue reading →

Lotta Hitschmanova was a letter writer extraordinaire. So many times in my travels across the country, individuals have shared with me their joy at having received a personal, hand written note from Lotta, and some have even safe guarded these notes as keepsakes in treasured locations in their homes.

Here is a remarkable, touching letter that Lotta wrote to a friend in Moose Jaw in 1983: Continue reading →